On November 29, 1775, the Rev. Joseph Haven answered the call to minister to the Town of Rochester, N.H. Sermon No. 79 was delivered March 31, 1776 — probably in Rochester — as New Hampshire settlers, tested by a continuing disregard for their needs and rights as loyal British foreign citizens, grew increasingly more defiant of the whim of the Crown and Parliament.
The Rev. Haven would serve the Rochester congregation from 1775 until 1822, and his surviving sermons carry the voice of a frontier community through revolution, independence, and the early republic.
The full text and analysis of Sermon No. 79 appears in Sermons of the Reverend Joseph Haven, 1775–1822.